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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27825490">The COVID Holiday Beverage Testing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat'>cutsycat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>One shots - Team centric [54]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCIS</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:41:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,225</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27825490</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the COVID Holiday Beverage Testing fic that no one asked for, where Abby is planning the NCIS Holiday Party during COVID and needs to know what beverages to serve and enlists the MCRT to help out.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>One shots - Team centric [54]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/674015</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Cutsycat's NCIS Happy Holidy LJ Challenge 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The COVID Holiday Beverage Testing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is for Day 1: Holiday Beverages of the <a href="https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/259794.html">Happy Holiday Challenge on lj</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Remind me why we’re here again?” Tony mumbled as he blinked at the astonishingly large number of tables in front of them.</p><p>Gibbs just grunted. “You’re the one who talked me into coming, remember?”</p><p>Tony sighed, “Right.”</p><p>“Buck up, Sex Machine. It’s just Abby.”</p><p>Tony stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Gibbs in horror. “You didn’t…” he trailed off muttering before finally continuing in a more normal voice, “You just jinxed us, Gibbs.” </p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Don’t you remember what happened last year courtesy of “Just Abby”?”</p><p>Gibbs groaned as he finally realized what Tony was talking about. “It will be fine. She didn’t invite any Klingons this time, right?”</p><p>“God. I hope not.”</p><p>Before either of them could say more, Abby herself appeared with her hair pulled back into two pigtails, a mask over her mouth and nose, and one of the shortest skirts you could wear without being arrested for public indecency. Her shirt was a tight button up, giving her outfit the impression of a slutty school girl uniform. “Welcome to The Horrors of Holiday Mixtures! Have you been here before?” Abby bounced eagerly up and down.</p><p>Tony was pretty sure they were in Ducky’s living room, but he wasn’t going to spoil Abby’s fun. He exchanged a glance with Gibbs. They both shook their heads in answer to Abby’s question.</p><p>“Ok, so what you’re going to do is grab a scoresheet from each table. All the scoresheets look the same just 10 boxes numbered from 1 to 10 and the table # above them.”</p><p>“Is this really necessary, Abs?” Gibbs cut in.</p><p>“Absolutely. How else would we be able to ensure the results of the Holiday Mixtures were 100% accurate?”</p><p>Tony rolled his eyes. Trying to hurry the explanation along, Tony prompted, “So after we grab a scoresheet for a table we then take a sip of each drink?”</p><p>Abby was shaking her head before Tony had even finished speaking. “No, no, no. You can’t just start tasting them and mixing them with whatever is already in your mouth. You have to cleanse your palate first and then again before each new taste.”</p><p>“What?” Gibbs growled. “There’s nothing wrong with my tongue.” Gibbs grabbed the first drink and slammed it back, picking up a scorecard as well.</p><p>“Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs! You can’t do that!” Abby protested, wringing her hands and hovering around him in dismay.</p><p>Gibbs ignored her, downing sample after sample. “Now what?” he barked after he’d tried each drink on that table. </p><p>“Oh dear!” Abby wailed, but Gibbs just gave her a look and she stumbled out, “Next you score each drink from 1 to 10 by putting the appropriate number in the box.”</p><p>Gibbs scribbled on the piece of paper and looked back up at Abs. “Next?”</p><p>“It goes in the box at the end and you move onto the next table.”</p><p>Gibbs nodded and dropped the slip into the box moving onto the table. </p><p>Abby pinched Tony’s arm. “Can’t you talk some sense into him?”</p><p>“Me?” Tony’s eyes widened, “I’m not sure why you think I could.”</p><p>“Just try, Tony, please.” Abby clung to his arm, jumping up and down, jerking his arm about in the process.</p><p>“Fine. Now, what’s the actual way to do this.”</p><p>Abby pointed to the clear pitchers on the table. “One of those is lemon water and the other cucumber water, they make a perfect palate cleanser. Just use one of those in between each drink.”</p><p>“Got it, Abs.” Tony flashed her a smile as he stepped up to the table and pulled down his mask to follow Gibbs’ lead, though drinking much more slowly and savoring each flavor before moving onto the next.</p><p>“Oh! Tony! The last table has special rules!” Abby called out.</p><p>Tony turned back to face her. “Oh?”</p><p>“Yeah. You have to make a pitcher of your own holiday drink for all the testers to share. There are disposable gloves on the table to use to prevent spread.”</p><p>Tony nodded his head in understanding, quickly filling out the scoresheet and moving onto the next table, quietly grabbing Gibb’s elbow and whispering a few words to him. Gibbs scowled in return, but nodded and slowed his pace for the taste testing. </p><p>By the time they reached the last table where they’d make their own creation Tony was beyond grateful that this hadn’t been a worst Holiday Drink contest. He was pretty sure they’d try over one hundred different drinks and he honestly hadn’t realized that there were so many holiday concoctions available.</p><p>“Hey Abs, why are we doing this again?”</p><p>“How else am I supposed to figure out the drinks that will provide optimal happiness for our Holiday Party?” Abby posed back as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.</p><p>“Oh. Of course,” Tony nodded.</p><p>“Do you even know what half of those drinks were, DiNozzo?” Gibbs asked.</p><p>Tony shook his head. “It’s probably better that way honestly. I can’t believe she got approval from Vance to do this.”</p><p>“I can, especially after the year we’ve had.”</p><p>Tony cringed, remembering how much harder COVID had made their jobs. They’d always had to wear gloves at a crime scene, but now they were expected to wear them constantly in the office and observe social distancing guidelines. Have you ever tried to observe social distancing guidelines at a crime scene? It’s practically impossible, but they had to try according to Vance.</p><p>He loved his jobs, but the rules they had to follow now due to COVID was driving him batty. It didn’t help that Gibbs didn’t believe in COVID and kept refusing to wear his mask, resulting in huge rows between him and Vance all the time. Tony wished that Gibbs would wear his mask more often even though he didn’t believe in it. Tony didn’t want to be the one to suffer because Gibbs refused to wear his mask.</p><p>Needless to say, tensions were considerably higher than they ever had been before and investigations took even longer since they had even more rules to follow to prevent accidental spread during questioning witnesses and interrogating suspects and what not. Tony couldn’t wait for COVID to be over and things to return to normal. He envied people who could actually do their jobs working from home or heck even staying in one place at an office. </p><p>He’d never realized how hard it was to actually avoid human contact before this. Heck, he was pretty sure that if any one of them got COVID that the entire team would end up with it. Knowing his luck, Tony would probably be one of the ones to end up hospitalized if that ever happened.</p><p>After everyone else in the MCRT had done the tasting and scored everything, they all sampled the new drinks and scored them too. Abby happily bounced to collect the scorecards, announcing, “This is going to be the best mixers for the Holiday Party ever!”</p><p>Tony and Gibbs just shook their heads as they left Ducky’s house and returned to their own homes. They enjoyed the chance to hang out together, however briefly they could. The Holiday Party was going to be interesting with COVID guidelines still in place, but Tony was sure that Abby had it all planned out. He just hoped it would go better than last year.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p class="font-lightpurple">Apologies for vanishing for so long. With everything going on this year, it's been a struggle to convince muse to write anything. At this point in time, the chances of any updates to the dictionary.com series before next year is slim. Heck, I don't even have 24 stories for the Happy Holiday Challenge Themes, so you'll just have to deal with sporadic posting for now. I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things starting next year, but no promises. I'm alive and well, however.
</p><p class="font-cherryred">The 2020 Prompts are open now! Go forth and prompt me! <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2020/profile">Click here</a> to add your prompts to my 2020 Prompt Collection. Just click the sign up link. ;) I'm hoping to complete all the 2020 prompts by the end of 2021. </p><p>If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me <a href="http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html">here</a>. Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.</p><p class="font-blue"> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is <a href="https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq">here</a>. If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. </p><p>Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780">Tutelage</a> and <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840">Imbue</a>. Go support them. </p></blockquote></div></div>
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